Spiders are everywhere

Louise Bourgeois-Spider

I was walking home on my usual path when the denuded branches of a tree hovering above my head turned into a big spider web. This short lived hallucination reminded me that spiders are everywhere. 

In the summer of 2021, I was roaming around the streets of New York city. I had nowhere in particular to be. I stumbled into the first building that offered to shield me from the unbearable heat of the city's summer. I ended up on the second floor of the jewish museum. They were exposing work by the French-American artist Louise Bourgeois. She is known for her prolific representation of spiders in the form of sculptures, sketches and drawings. I read about the autobiographical and psychological allusions of her fascination with the arachnids. However, I couldn't pinpoint exactly what disturbed me so much about the megalithic representation of these long legged creatures. 

In random moments of my day to day, I was reminded of her work and of this specific sculpture of a colossal spider. I always feared the little spiders, because I was under the impression that if they cohabited the same space as me, and I were to fall asleep, they would creep into my ears and invade my brains like intrusive thoughts. I can testify that I am not the most rational individual. I am very prone to developing phobias based on very unlikely scenarios. Nonetheless, I know for a fact that spiders are everywhere. They are in almost every habitat on earth. Some even go as far as invading the ocean's edge, living in the rock and coral crevices of the intertidal zone. 

The spiders I saw were of a different kind. They were gigantic, almost occupying the entirety of a wall. These spiders were the kind that only I could see. Nobody beside me could notice the spider’s presence in the room. It would fixate on me with its big dark eyes for a few minutes. Then it would disappear into thin air leaving me with the uneasiness of its gaze. 

It lurks in a corner of my room, every night, from 2am till I go to bed. It remains there deadpan without budging an inch. As my brain races with anxious thought, the spider would grow larger and larger and larger until it takes up the whole room, cornering me into a claustrophobic quarter. I would suffocate from the spider’s presence; unable to scream; unable to kill it; unable to forget about it. 

When I am outside with friends, having fun, joking around, I could see it with the corner of my eye on the wall of the restaurant, the bar or the cafe. As I clock out of the conversation, it starts to grow again, until it reaches a monstrous size. Tears race up to my lacrimal glands who fight them back with might while the spider keeps growing. 

There is nothing Jungian about the spider that haunts me in every room. Only I can see it and I am very good at pretending it is not there. Nobody would ever be able to notice the discomfort, the cold sweat, the darkness that bestows me at any given moment because nobody else is able to see the spider. 

Webs are very fragile yet very solid. The silky threads are very intricate in their making, but it takes a second to annihilate the complex structure. Ironic isn’t it,My spider, however, is webless. I don't have any leverage over it. I can't dismantle its architecture as a retaliation for overwhelming me . It is just there. It comes out of nowhere and disappears suddenly too. 

The only indication is that, whenever I feel the tenebrous thoughts start crawling into my soul, I would know that the spider is somewhere near. I could feel its gaze settling on my body. I know that when I start to feel the doom of life tickling my melancholia glands, the spider will grow bigger. I am scared that one day it will not be satisfied with just fixating me with its big horror goggles. I am afraid that, one day, the spider will swallow me. The issue is: Only I can see the spider, at all times. Nobody will be able to save me.

I brushed off the visual slip, laughed at the frail tree branches and kept walking home. I stopped by the bakery to buy some bread before reaching my place. I climbed the stairs to my floor, and opened the door slowly. That's when I saw it. It was waiting for me. A huge hungry arachnid. The spider looked hungrier than ever. I tiptoed to my bed, picked my computer and started writing. Maybe if I write, it will leave me alone. With each word typed, the spider shrunk a little. But it was still there. I can’t stop writing because I know that spiders are everywhere and they keep getting bigger.